Much has been written about the Cuban regime’s infiltration of Venezuela, its meddling and direct participation in government institutions and organisms, notes international human rights lawyer Tamara Suju (above), the Executive Director of the Casla Institute. But little has been said about the intelligence and repression training given to Venezuelan civilians and military officers within our borders and abroad, and how that has played a role in cases of crimes against humanity, she writes for El Nacional:
I have in my hands a copy of the syllabus for studies at the School for Psychological Operations, located near the War School in Fuerte Tiuna, which offers a 14-month course, in three sections, to Venezuelan military intelligence officers with the rank of sergeant and above. The course teaches the “students” how to manipulate people through political propaganda, shock therapies, and manipulation of and training in communications. For seven of the 14 months, they are taught by Cuban and Iranian officers, with their perspectives providing the focus of how the lessons should be applied to the civilian population. They then go on to internships in government institutions and centers, as well as countries “friendly” to the Maduro regime.
Other courses taught throughout the country, called “shock therapy,” are designed to train the students in techniques of physical and psychological torture. These courses are taught in Venezuela as well as Cuba, to civilian and military intelligence officials, pro-Maduro paramilitary groups known as “colectivos,” military officers and members of the civilian National Bolivarian Intelligence Service, known as SEBIN, and the General Directorate for Military Counterintelligence (CIM).
The criminal structure of Chavismo-Madurismo, and those members of the national armed forces that allowed it, will pass into history as the greatest shame and betrayal our country has seen in all its modern history, adds Suju, a recipient of the National Endowment for Democracy’s 2015 Democracy Award. They not only denied two generations of Venezuelans the opportunity to improve their lives and live in peace, but they handed over the homeland to the oldest dictatorship in the continent in exchange for help remaining in power by controlling its people, persecuting, spying, repressing, torturing and humiliating its adversaries and sparking the current biblical exodus out of Venezuela, she told this week’s OAS hearing, Crimes against Humanity in Venezuela.
